GAWA INVESTMENT TEAM & COMMITTEE
Mitch is the co-founder and CEO of Treetops Capital LP and is responsible for leading the company’s investment activities and designing the strategy. He has spent most of his career working at the intersection of development and the capital markets and has helped pioneer innovations in the microfinance and SME sectors since the mid-1990s.
Mitch launched and manages the Gawa Microfinance Fund and he is the acting Chairman of the investment committee. He also co-founded RPF Development in 2004, a sister company of Treetops Capital, that invests in and develops green affordable housing in Eastern Europe. RPF is also in the process of developing Romania’s first SME Business Center, a green office space that is intended to serve as an incubator and help foster synergies between SME tenants.
Before co-founding Treetops Capital, Mitch was a managing director at Credit Suisse and prior to that at Bank of America where he structured and later ran global syndication and primary trading for several product areas. He also formerly headed the emerging market structured finance group at Fitch for Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. He started his career in finance at the Federal Reserve where he was a financial analyst focused on Latin American financial institutions.
Mitch obtained his bachelors degree from Binghamton and he has a Masters degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Dragos is the co-founder of Treetops Capital as well as the CEO of RPF Development, a sister company of Treetops Capital, that invests in and develops green affordable housing in Eastern Europe. Dragos has spent his entire career investing in and fostering the growth of SMEs as well as building RPF Development into a world class real estate development firm.
After the fall of communism, Dragos began his entrepreneurial pursuits and founded a sweater importing company that employed over 100 hundred Romanian women. Dragos then founded 11 DNA, Inc., an investment firm that invested in Romanian SMEs. He consistently generated strong returns while charging affordable interest rates to SMEs through structuring revenue sharing mechanisms and providing much needed technical assistance and guidance along the way.
Dragos is a member of the investment committee of the Gawa Microfinance Fund and brings years of practical investment and lending experience to the team.
Mr. Vranceanu has a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Bucharest and a BS from University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Katie is an Investment Analyst at Treetops Capital where she focuses on sourcing and analyzing investments, as well as providing advisory services to microfinance institutions (MFIs). Her career has spanned emerging markets finance, microfinance and development consulting throughout Eastern Europe, South Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Her recent financial advisory projects have included the creation of an equity valuation model and training guide for MFIs, a product costing analysis, and a market assessment for a greenfield MFI. Katie has also previously worked as a consultant for international microfinance organizations such as the Women’s World Banking’s Capital Markets Group and Grameen Foundation in Peru.
While in commercial banking, Katie focused on emerging markets financial institution analysis. She was a financial analyst at HSBC performing Know-Your-Customer due diligence on emerging market bank clients, and a Summer Associate at Bear Stearns in their Emerging Markets Equity Research group, covering the Latin American Financial Sector.
Katie holds a Masters in Finance from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University and a BA from Boston University in International Relations. She is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
Mr. Diez-Hochleitner holds more than 30 years of experience holding top general management and finance positions. He is a partner at Ambers Capital and has played a key role in the founding of the asset management and microfinance activities atAmbers&Co.
He is currently the Vice Chairman of Mas-Movil (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), Chairman of Canalmail (e-mail marketing leader in Spain), of Bodaclick (Internet company) and Vice Chairman of 20 Minutos España (publisher of Spain’s leading free newspaper). He is also an Advisor to Schibsted International (the leading Scandinavian media group) and to Veronis Suhler Stevenson (a leading private equity firm).
He has been a Partner at Apax Partners, where he was head of Spain’s Media group. Before Apax Partners, Mr. Diez-Hochleitner was the COO and CFO for the largest media group in Spain, Grupo Prisa, where among other responsibilities he led the expansion of the group in Latin America and the group’s IPO process.
Mr. Diez-Hochleitner started his career in banking, where he held various responsibilities at the Dresdner Bank and BNP Paribas group, including heading Banexi in Spain.
He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from IESE (Universidad de Navarra) and a BA from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Mr. Jiménez-Blanco has 23 years of investment banking experience at top global institutions in London and Madrid. He has advised the largest Spanish and Portuguese companies in their most important strategic and financial transactions, including Telefonica, Endesa, Banco Santander, Repsol, ACS, Ferrovial, EDP, Portugal Telecom.
He is currently a Senior Advisor to Credit Suisse in Spain, a position he holds since November 2009.
Mr. Jiménez-Blanco was since 2006 Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch in Spain and Portugal, a position he left in January 2009. He immediately became involved in Ambers Capital, due to his high interest in microfinance.
Before joining Merrill Lynch in 2006, David served as Head of the European Industrials Group at Goldman Sachs' London Office. Prior to that he had been Co-Head of the Spanish Investment Banking Team in Madrid. He worked for Goldman Sachs from 1995 until 2006.
Before Goldman Sachs, Mr. Jiménez-Blanco was a Director of Investment Banking at Salomon Brothers in London, where he worked from 1989 until 1995.
Mr. Jiménez-Blanco holds a Business Administration degree from CUNEF (ascribed to Universidad Complutense Madrid).
Mr. Vitórica has worked in investments and asset management for the last ten years. His interest in microfinance comes from his academic side, being currently a doctoral researcher on the impact of new technology on microfinance institutions.
Before forming Ambers&Co Capital Microfinanzas, Mr. Vitórica was the head of Dalbergia, a large family office in Spain which has been very active in direct venture capital and private equity investments in SMEs. He was responsible for the whole investment process, including deal flow origination, negotiation and closing of the entry transaction, monitoring of the investee company and negotiation and execution of the exit transaction. In his investor role, he has served as Board Member of 8 SMEs from various sectors.
Since 2004 and while he was heading Dalbergia, Mr. Vitórica was also the managing director of the New Business Division at Grupo Zeta, one of the largest media groups in Spain, owned by the family that owns Dalbergia. Under his responsibilities he headed the Audiovisual, Internet and Mobile operations, being responsible for the start-up of four businesses. He was also in charge of Corporate Development, heading the strategy, M&A and investments activities in the group.
Before working in Dalbergia and Grupo Zeta, Mr. Vitórica spent most of his career in financial institutions, both as a consultant and as an auditor for the largest financial institutions of Spain, at the international firms Accenture and Deloitte. He was also a financial consultant at Global Business and Finance, a small consulting boutique focusing on financial advisory.
Mr. Vitórica is currently a candidate for the doctor’s degree at the University of Manchester. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) and a degree in Business Administration from Centro Universitario Villanueva (ascribed to Universidad Complutense Madrid).
Mr. Torre spent most of his career working in microfinance, SMEs and financial institutions.
Prior to forming Ambers&Co Capital Microfinanzas, he previously worked in Investment Banking in the Financial Institutions Group at Credit Suisse on a variety of transactions, including the Initial Public Offering of Banco Compartamos and Financiera Independencia. Mr. Torre also spearheaded a commercial microfinance initiative to increase Credit Suisse's market share in the sector.
Prior to Credit Suisse, Mr. Torre worked in India for Annapurna, a cooperative microfinance bank located in Pune, performing a turnaround of the organization to support financial sustainability.
Mr. Torre also worked in Cambodia with the International Finance Corporation to support local Social Entrepreneurship.
He started his career as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group focusing on the Financial Services sector and worked extensively with the largest Italian banking group in better serving the Small and Medium Enterprise segment.
Mr. Torre received a First Class BSc from University of Brighton and a MBA from The Kellogg School of Management where he was awarded the Siebel scholarship for leadership and academic achievements.
Mr. Torre is the Chairman of the Credit Committee of the Lower East Side People Credit Union in New York City.